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Spanish Superlatives: End of the Year Student Awards

As we approach the end of another school year, I wanted to share with you all one of my favorite ways to wrap up: awarding Spanish language superlative certificates to each of my students.

These little awards are pretty easy to make yourself (or buy mine on TpT for a few bucks - link is at the end of this blog post), and they can be a lot of fun. We teachers also need to be thoughtful and careful about how we award them, so we're not reinforcing negative stereotypes or typecasting our kids.

What are Spanish Superlatives?

I'm not talking grammar here! The superlatives I'm referring to are silly awards for The Best Hair, The Most Artistic, The Class Clown, etc. My high school would award these to seniors every year, so it was a fun idea to adapt it for my individual classes, translating the idea to Spanish.

On one of the last days of class, I spend about 20 minutes calling out all the awards and distributing an accompanying certificate to each student. I often tell a little story, building up who the award winner may be and why. Then I call their name, they come up to accept their award, and the class applauds. Best part is this is done in 100% target language!

Why Award Spanish Superlatives?

Students love the acknowledgement

It is 100% target language

They are low cost

They are relatively low effort

It is entertaining for students

It is a nice way to get some closure and to celebrate at the end of the year

This is a relationship building activity - we teachers know classbuilding is just as important at the end of the year as at the beginning

BUT, Please Be Sensitive!!

I tell students that these awards are “just for fun” and they are intentionally silly. They are not meant to type cast or stereotype kids. Instead, they are meant to celebrate something fun about each student! And to do it in Spanish.

When selecting awardees, I am very very very careful to try and not affirm negative stereotypes! Please be careful about assigning these awards.

With my own awards, I was careful to make both male and female options for the awards (e.g., "El más curioso" and "La más curiosa"). Even so, I want to be sure I don’t have an award make a student feel negatively stereotyped. To do this, I don’t give the best hair award to a girl. Nope! And if I award an “El mejor atelta” I for sure will be awarding a “La mejor atleta” counterpart. I have an “El futuro Bill Gates” award, but also have “La futura Oprah Winfrey,” “La futura Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” and “El futuro Lin-Manuel Miranda.” Including awards like this shows my students that there are many people of color we can aspire to be like.

My final tip is: Think carefully before awarding. I only do this activity with mature classes who know me and feel “safe” together as a class.

How Does It Work?

Step 1. Prep Award Materials

In Powerpoint, I made a certificate template, like these (below). I made male and female versions of most of my awards and tried to use cognates when possible.

Some favorite awards I've used:

Las mejores preguntas

El más fanfarrón / La más fanfarrona

La mejor risa

El más positivo / La más positiva

Mejor participación

La persona quien superó más

Más extrovertido

You could also make these in word and add a sticker instead of the clipart once you print. I have made and used a couple of different award styles with my students and sell them in my Teachers Pay Teachers store if you're interested.

Step 2. Select the Award Winners

In the past, I've selected the award winners in two ways:Option 1: Teacher decides the award winners
I pull out my seating chart and go through assigning an award to each student. This is actually a fun reflective activity for me. If there's a student who doesn't quite fit the awards I've already made, I try to come up with a new one especially for them. This option is great for remembering inside jokes among your class as well.

Option 2: Students vote to decide the award winners
Make a list of all the award categories, print it out, make a copy for each student, and each student writes in student award nominees for each of the categories. This is a nice way for them to get in a little target language reading in the process.

Step 3. Print the Awards and Add Your Signature

I print my awards on brightly colored card stock, but you could buy certificate paper as well. As I've mentioned before, investing a few bucks in high quality supplies is such a simple way to "up" the importance or value of any activity in students' minds. Using nice paper, adding stickers or seals to the awards, using fancy writing, and your actual signature shows students you love them.

Step 4. Plan Class Time to Distribute the Awards

I reserve about 20 minutes to hand out the awards, and pick one of the last days of school. Might be a perfect way to spend one of those shortened periods, senior ditch day, or a gap day where you don't want to pursue new content.

I begin the award presentation by talking a little about the person about to receive the given award, giving hints as to who it might be. Then I announce the award, show it to the class, and say the winner's name. They all applaud, and that person comes up to receive their certificate. Simple as that!

Have you given out student awards in Spanish class? What advice can you share? Interested to hear all your great ideas, if you'll comment below!